Post navigation

Legal ethics: telephone support available

If you have a question about legal ethics under Connecticut law, I offer telephone support. Depending on the circumstances, I offer this service on a scale ranging from pro bono, to the caller’s hourly rate (assuming the caller has an hourly rate) to a flat fee. I am certainly willing to consider other arrangements.

I have over a decade of giving telephone support and over 21 years of analyzing and thinking through prospective lawyer conduct in the context of legal ethics. Based on that experience, I think it can be a valuable resource for lawyers to use in exercising their own independent professional judgment. The process of describing one’s situation to an independent, objective lawyer is itself useful.

I can be reached at 203-772-4400 x 320 or via email at wick.chambers@winnicklaw.com.

This service involves listening, asking questions, suggesting legal authority the caller may wish to take into account and helping the caller understand and begin to think through the boundaries within which to exercise professional judgment. This service is limited to telephone consultation. It DOES NOT include representing the caller or giving legal opinions. It can include giving the caller names of lawyers who I believe have excellent reputations in light of the caller’s needs and who the caller may wish to interview and retain..

I have a particular interest in helping prevent problems. I also have an interest in helpings lawyers who believe another lawyer has done something improper think through the issues. Silence is complicity. There are private alternatives to silence on the one hand and the filing of a grievance on the other.

It is my experience that consultations last anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to many hours over a period of days. The average call I would guess lasts between 30 and 60 minutes, sometimes followed by a fax or email.

I offer this service in part with the hope that the marketplace will welcome it. But it is also my hope, through this service and other ideas I will post in the future, to encourage lawyers and others to talk about legal ethics, to think things through, to ask questions and, in general, to make legal ethics more accessible on a practical, inexpensive basis.

If you think this service is a good idea, kindly let me know even if you don’t need to use it right now. Please tell others about it. Many thanks.